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It's Not All About Me

Vogue, Details, Spin, Sounds staff writer, West Coast editor; loads of magazines, daily and weekly newspapers; columns, reporting, features, criticism. Couple of Deems Taylor Awards for music stuff, lots of other awards for reporting, writing, columns. Worked and traveled in more than twenty countries. Published in six languages; writes exclusively in American.

"The best new American rock writer of the '80s" — Creem

"[SPIN's] West Coast editor Bart Bull's piece on John Lee Hooker is as witty and perceptive a piece of writing as you're likely to find in any magazine anywhere." — Los Angeles Times

"Writer, musician, manager, gadabout, and cool-guy raconteur..." — New Times

"This obsessive, smart-ass, and at times uproarious collection... [has] nothing to do with commercial success. If (it) did, '...probably the eighth greatest band name ever would be Celine Dion, and we'd all know the Book of Revelations was kicking full effect.'"

Failure magazine "book" review of Battle of The Band Names

"His explication of why white America hasn't clasped Michael Jackson to its bosom as tightly as it has Bruce Springsteen [in another publication] was the most provocative, insightful, and prolix piece of writing I've read since Lester Bangs' famous piece on wanting to do James Taylor grievous bodily harm. . .

His condemnation of Woodstock a few issues back made me cackle aloud with delight."

Creem

"Ironically, for a book [Tom Waits On Tom Waits] that leans overwhelmingly towards smaller-press rock journalism, the most intriguing character in the book aside from Waits is Bart Bull, veteran journalist extraordinaire, a large-publication writer and the former West Coast editor of SPIN. Two of Bull’s Waits pieces are included — the first, the aforementioned “After a One-Night Stand” article from 1977, is the account of a fight between interviewer and interviewee that arose when a mid-tour Waits was particularly exhausted and cranky. The second, “Boho Blues,” written for Spin in 1987, is an ambitious, successful attempt to write a piece of Waits journalism in the style of Waits himself and the most insightful piece in the book.

At its absolute best, as with the Bart Bull articles, Tom Waits on Tom Waits illuminates its subject and allows a peek into the history of lesser-known late-20th century rock journalism, sometimes from now-defunct publications."

"Not all the interviewers here fall into line and churn out cookie cutter questions though. One of the best pieces is written by Bart Bull for Phoenix New Times in 1977. Waits had just released Foreign Affairs and was in a particularly bad mood that evening. Rather than let Waits run roughshod over him, Bull fought back. Written in a narrative style, it stands out amongst the typical Q+A format that dominates this book. And what did Bull gain from giving the man such a negative profile? The chance to interview him again 10 years later for SPIN. In Tom Waits on Tom Waits, many music journos learn that flattery gets you nowhere."